I'm not sure if such a thing exists anymore (what, with both Firefox and Chrome doing the release-all-the-time thing), but browser season 2012 has been opened! Opera 12 has just been released, bringing with it all sorts of updates and improvements. She may not be the most popular of the pack, but she sure has the most loyal fanbase.

Seems a bit too inconsistent ( http://www.opera.com/docs/history/ ) - 2009 was only the closing year of Opera 9.x, a version which spanned 3 years (OK, 9 could have been more or less the beginning of practice); Opera 10.x was available already in September 2009; and while 11.x seems close enough, middle of December 2010 - now we have 12.x only already halfway through the year.

I recall a PC Mag article where John Dvorak thought that MS (with Windows 3.11 ) and other software vendors should move to dated based versioning scheme. Windows 95 did come later making me think he had inside info.

Using dated versions helps the consumer. Consumers know how long an iteration of their software has been on the market. Having a non-dated and arbitrary number scheme allows vendors to sell more due to confusion, as well as fend off the perception that "ShrinkWrap 95", even though it's patched and still used in 2012 is progressive.

Maybe not. Judging from the response to the Facebook merger rumor on the Opera forums, a lot of the loyal fanbase has (at least temporarily) moved on. This was a case where the silence was deafening -- Opera's refusal to comment only confirmed that some sort of negotiation was happening. It has only been within the past week that Opera stated that they are not for sale (coincidentally, Facebook stock is off 27% from IPO), but the damage was done at this point. I switched back to Firefox after many years.

An unintended victim of this rumor was Fastmail.fm, but their refusal to refund paid subscriptions for any reason has lessened the immediate impact. I'm sure LuxSci and Runbox saw a spike in new accounts during those two weeks though.

I'd agree, to a point. But one would be a fool not to at least be looking into other options in the event the rumor does become substantiated. Opera's been my preferred browser on *nix for a few versions now, but I'll be dropping it like a stone the second facebook's tainted touch enters the picture.

I don't think you can be considered "loyal" if an unsubstantiated rumor makes you leave. "

Loyalty is a two-way street. I can show my loyalty by giving money (as in, paying for the browser as I did years ago, or paying for their premium email service Fastmail.fm, as I currently do). Opera, in return, can show loyalty to me by not (as far as I know) harvesting the data I have in their cloud (which I have been using since the first day they introduced Opera Link). That includes years of bookmarks and browsing history that I have synced to their servers, and the last six years my life that I have stored on Fastmail. Selling out to Facebook would have complicated this relationship, as I do not trust my data with that man.

Opera should have denied the rumor immediately. We were left to speculate that the reason they were being silent for two weeks was because it is a violation to comment about ongoing negotiations to the public. Only very recently in this saga has Opera said it is not for sale, but they still did not deny involvement with Facebook.

I might not be "loyal," but I am not a bandwagon user either. I spent Memorial Day weekend coming up with a contingency plan to migrate from Fastmail.

I'm a loyal enough fan to try every new Opera version, but like usual I've ended up disappointed. It works well enough for basic browsing with the default settings, but a lot of the configuration options and unusual features (the things that first made me an Opera fan) remain neglected or broken.

Opera 10.10 was the last version I could use without constantly being frustrated by its glitches. I can't even use the best recent Opera feature (tab stacking) because my sidebar settings somehow break it. Some of the current problems have hung around for years now without much sign of them even being worked on.

Don't get me wrong, there's some good stuff in Opera 12 (CPU usage monitoring is particularly welcome) and I'd definitely encourage people to give it a try, I just wish they'd fix the bloody bugs!

My favorite one is double-click-and-drag text selection which is inconsistent with pretty much any other Windows app.

I also regret that "tabs in titlebar" requires themes to be turned on, unlike FF and Chrome.

And I'm really looking forward to a chrome-like or even IE-like tab grouping feature (need to look at OpenWindowImprover, which may just be it).

Other than this, I'm glad Opera is still alive and kicking.
Sure, other browsers caught back over the years, and even sometimes marginally improved on it, but still, Opera pretty much invented modern browsing.

Opera is my dedicated pandora browser, which works great for an hour or two at a time, before a cascading stream of javascript errors stops the music. I don't know if its pandora or opera's fault. heaven knows there are millions of broken html, css, & js websites out there that browsers make work despite themselves, so I know its not necessarily opera's fault. I guess today I'll find out if pandora has been accommodated one way or the other.

I know about Opera Link and that stuff. Yes, I wrote "across platforms and browsers" because I use different browsers on different computers/gadgets with different operating systems and I sometimes want to try new major versions of various browsers. X-Marks is keeping it all together and does it well (usually), syncing bookmarks, cookies, etc across them.

I meant exactly what I wrote. I would use Opera more often if it wasn't an own little echo system. BUT, I'm not blaming Opera for it (unless they are denying access to the required APIs), I'm blaming X-Marks for ignoring Opera users.

BTW, I checked out JavaScript Gmail on a machine where such js performance really matters (think netbook-class) - still laggy, still better to use html version or, for such few services, Chrome (well, or native IMAP client; Opera conveniently including one which quite decently integrates with Gmail features)

I've been using Opera for years now.
It does everything I need and does it well.
The only thing I regret is his memory consumption : when you close a tab, it's still in the memory, even if you "empty the closed tabs list".

Apart from this point, it's stable, it offers the same look and feel on every platform, it runs on my Galaxy S, Opera Link is perfect for me, mouse gestures are a must as soon as you are used to it, Dragonfly is just behind Firebug (but so close that I don't need firebug anymore), Turbo is a very good stuff when you have old/bad connection, I love being able to save personnal datas that Opera propose when filling a form... (And I still, I forgot so much great things!)

Ok, some website don't run ok (my bank for exemple). So from time to time I have to use FF of IE. But I don't care because it so rare....

Opera used to be a memory champion (had it running with well over 200 tabs!), but I agree this might not be the case anymore.

Chrome was pretty bad in this area, presumably because of process separation, and seems to have improved lately (it does seem to group a bunch of tabs in the same process now).
Still I had it crash badly on startup a few days ago, reloading the last set of tabs, while everything was running smooth just before (had to unplug the network, run Chrome, plug in back and reload tabs one by one...)

Overall memory behavior is not something easy to test for.
Even when a browser runs fine with a large specific set of tabs, memory often increases over time (days, weeks) just like you said, and the whole thing can crawl to swapping hell.